WINNING THE WAR ON WAGES:

Enter the couplings of some rather strange bedfellows. Obama can count on support from key Republicans who otherwise have very little use for him. These strange bedfellow include Orrin Hatch in the Senate, and Paul Ryan in the House, the latter pushing the president's trade deals while at the same time savaging his budget and tax proposals. Opposing the freer-trade coalition is a set of equally strange bedfellows: conservative Republican Tea Partiers and ultra-liberal Democrats. Conservatives contend that Obama has so over-shot his constitutional authority by granting de facto amnesty to some five million illegal immigrants, refusing to enforce federal laws against marijuana, and turning Guantanamo detainees lose to return to battle, that it would be folly to encourage his tendency to rely on unilateral executive orders by giving him fast-track authority. Rick Manning, president of a Tea Party advocacy group, puts it this way, "After President Obama's power grabs ... people have come to the conclusion you should not be giving this president any additional authority." Liberal Democrats are annoyed with what they see as the president's failure to protect workers whose wages have stagnated during his tenure in office. "We have trusted and trusted for years and years, and it's only been to the detriment of American workers ... Fast track ... will not happen," Rosa DeLauro, liberal Democratic congresswoman from Connecticut, told reporters. 

Proponents of the deals with the EU and the eleven Pacific Rim countries make two arguments. Ryan contends that one out of every five jobs in America is dependent on trade, which seems a bit of an exaggeration given the fact that our exports of goods and services average only about 13.5% of GDP and are exceeded by our imports, which suggests that trade both giveth and taketh away, perhaps creating more jobs for workers making things we buy than it does jobs for American workers making things foreigners buy.

Follow @brothersjudd